Here is a story where a Rabbi says that cloned pork may be eaten with milk. He says that since it does not come from a live animal, it isn’t meat.
Two Jews, three opinions. Others have opined that it wouldn’t even be acceptable for gentiles, as it would be “eating the limb of the living”.
And to clarify, even though all of the articles about this refer to it as cloning, what they’re actually talking about is in vitro tissue. A cloned pig would be a pig, and subject to all of the same laws (secular and religious).
Yes, I don’t know if the journalist or the Rabbi is a fault, but I suspect the former.
Of course, once you’ve decided that vat-meat isn’t halachically meat, you still have to deal with the question of good 'ol Morris Eye-in.
Jewish Law: There’s Always Another Complication.
Back to Mrs. Plant (v.2.0) eating fake bacon bits on her salads.
I love these saying. Having been raised Jewish, they speak to me.
“Ask not the Jew, for he will say, ‘eh, a little yes, a little no’”
It’s an entire culture founded on grey areas.
I remember a SF short story on the same subject, with a similar conclusion, although I think they modified pigs to chew cud.
The R-Strain-Harry Turtledove.
If a cheeseburger made with soy cheese is verboten because it looks like cheese, there is no way in hell that they would allowr in vitro pork.
True. What’s the saying, build a fence around the law?
I have read Rabbinic opinions that say the opposite, because since the cell culture comes from a pig, the principal of “that which comes from the forbidden (e.g., in current, non sci-fi usage it would apply to the milk of a sow or a mare) is likewise forbidden.”
I’m sure that the debate will take place in earnest when the product becomes more than theoretical.
Hey, they had soy-cheeseburgers in the dining hall at Yeshiva University.
They looked absolutely disgusting, but I saw plenty of people eating them.
Do they not look like the real thing, to avoid the problem you mentioned upthread?
(It sounds to me like you could just wear a sign saying “This is not real cheese” and it would satisfy the requirement, and similar with the topic of the OP.)
I mean, there wasn’t a sign that said SOY CHEESE HERE. It’s just that it was a kosher dining hall and the burgers were definitely meat, ergo the cheese had to be fake.
Yup, that’s the one. Thanks.
In case anyone’s interested, in Turtledove’s story, the rabbi decides…
That since the new animal cannot reproduce with regular pigs, it’s not a pig at all, and therefore kosher. That said, IIRC, he wouldn’t eat it himself.
Actually, he does eat it. When asked by his wife how it was, he says “I got through it.” And then reflects that the comment reflects the history of the Jewish people.
If cloned pigs can be kosher, does that mean that you can eat them on Fridays during Lent?
They’d be the 21sy century version of Barnacle Geese/Goose Barnacles.
Then you can make new Halal animals and maybe artificial bovines for Hindus. I can see an entire industry in “Forbidden Flesh” for all religions*
Of course, then some Marvin Harris-like cultural anthropologist would come along and point out tat al of these clones animals were really a phenomenal waste of resources, and against Optimal Foraging Theory, and we’d all have to go back to our food taboos.
*Would Eve have sinned if she ate a cloned apple?